Trade gives minister a pass grade

Thailand’s trade associations gave the Ministry of Tourism and Sports a “pass” grade for his efforts in 2009 to support tourism development in the country.

Federation of Thai Travel Associations and Tourism Council of Thailand agreed that the Ministry of Tourism and Sports had earned what they called a “passing grade for working through several crises,” but they noted that more cooperation was needed with the private sector.

They were commenting on Minister of Tourism and Sports, Chumpol Silapa-archa, achievements in response to questions from the media, during the signing ceremony for the new Tourism Authority of Thailand governor, Suraphon Svetasreni, held yesterday.

Fetta spokesperson, Charoen Wangananont, said the ministry should get eight grade points out of 10, mainly due to its efforts during a crisis and an economic downturn that caused a deep decline in tourism.

“When compared with other countries that have bigger budgets such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, our decline was not too dramatic at less than 10%,” said Mr Charoen.

However, he suggested the Minister should chair a monthly meeting with the private sector to evaluate and review progress. He also asked the new TAT governor to build unity with the private sector and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports rather than asking for bigger budgets.

Tourism Council of Thailand president, Kongkrit Hirunyakit, gave the ministry a 75% to 80% performance rating and said the ministry had performed better than his initial assessment adding that tourist arrivals were improving once more.

Meanwhile, Mr Chumpol expressed confidence that tourist arrivals would reach 13.8 million, or even 14 million by the end of the year, based on a 10-month performance of 12.44 million arrivals. He estimates that 2010 could deliver 16 million arrivals.

“It depends on political stability and no incidents such as the closure of airports that occurred a year ago, or protests that disrupted the Asean summit earlier this year.”

The pass grades were essentially the industry playing politics with the Minister, but a closer investigation of the 2009 projects would have revealed serious discontent with how the government performed in tourism.

An example of  how political infighting stymied tourism, this year, was evident at yesterday’s meeting, which was  the official employment contract signing ceremony for the new TAT governor.

It had taken the ministry nine months to appoint a person to the country’s top tourism post. The former governor retired last April, while the new governor will have to wait until 4 January to commence his duties.

Yet the associations gave the ministry eight out of 10 for what many believe was a serious lapse in an appointment procedure that left the TAT leaderless for most of 2009.